The Divergence of Secular and Biblical Approaches To Narcissism*

When we are discussing traits and tactics of narcissists*, there is not much difference between secular and biblical perspectives. This is because narcissist traits and tactics are basically observational and/or descriptive – focused on “facts”. The secular world “observes” the traits and tactics of narcissists* (those with insolent pride), while the Bible “describes” them.

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But it is as we dig deeper that the secular and biblical perspectives on narcissism will diverge. This is because the biblical perspective brings God into the equation (of course), while the secular perspective does not. Bringing God into the picture will affect our understanding of why narcissists do what they do, how they became narcissists, how we should relate to and deal with them, and how God deals with them. Bringing God into the picture will also impact our understanding of whether things in our “relationships” with narcissists can ever change or improve.

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We will try to explain as we progress both how and why bringing God into the picture changes things. And we will also occasionally highlight the differences between the secular and biblical approaches.

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I am mentioning this now, because while we will continue to discuss traits and tactics of narcissists, the emphasis is going to shift over time to a much deeper search into what is really going on with these “difficult people”.

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* Narcissist/narcissism is the modern colloquial term for what the Bible calls “insolent pride”. Please see here for an explanation.